Contents

Description

Also called skull dragons (due to the general shape of their heads) and swamp dragons, black dragons are perhaps the most malicious chromatics. Reds might have greater tempers, greens more ambition to deceive and control, but few other dragons share the cruelty of black dragons. Black dragons hunt not merely to survive or to protect their territory, but also for the sheer joy of causing pain. They care not whether their victims are helpless or hazardous, weak or powerful. Violence brings satisfaction.

Black dragons are also among the most cowardly of chromatic dragons. Though quick to engage in combat, they also quickly retreat if opponents prove more dangerous than expected. Given black dragons’ propensity for laying ambushes and striking from hiding, however, would-be victims might find it impossible to distinguish a fleeing black dragon from one regrouping to attack from another angle.

When possible, black dragons prefer to feed on sentient beings, considering fey creatures particular delicacies. The bulk of their diet consists of swamp creatures such as snakes, alligators, small mammals, and birds. Like alligators, black dragons might let their prey rot in the mud at the bottoms of swamps because they prefer the texture and flavor of putrefied flesh.

Black dragons fight on land only when circumstances force them to do so. They prefer to fight either in the water or on the wing.

Lairs and Terrain

Black dragons favor swamps and bogs: anywhere
with deep, murky water, thick trees, and fetid vegetation.
The water gives them an advantage in combat,
because the scents of growth and rot common to
swamps help to cover the acidic tang of the dragons’
presence. Only a deep swamp in which a dragon can
submerge serves the dragon’s purposes, so shallow
marshes rarely harbor black dragon lairs.

When a black dragon cannot find a deep swamp, it
settles for any area where freshwater and earth come
together in great quantities. Jungles and rain forests
might host black dragons, as might lakes in all but the
coldest climes. Purported lake monsters might in fact
be black dragons that have gone unrecognized outside
their usual swamps.

Black dragons loathe salt water. Although salt
water does not harm them, it irritates their flesh like
a bad rash. Thus, although black dragons might dive
into salt water to escape foes, they never make their
homes in salt marshes.

For their lairs, black dragons favor systems of
caves or hollows with multiple chambers, some partly submerged. A black dragon locates the main
entrance underwater and hides the entrance either
under thick layers of plant life or under a wall of mud
through which the dragon can swim.

Favored Treasure

Black dragons favor coins over other sorts of treasure, because coins can survive long-term immersion better than fragile paintings or sculpture. Although coins tarnish, they do not rust as other metals do. Gems might survive even better, but gems show up in black dragons’ hoards less frequently than coins. One possible reason for this disparity is that, since coins are obviously manufactured rather than naturally occurring, black dragons view them as intrinsically more valuable to their (former) possessors than gems.

Life Cycle

The incubation period for a black dragon’s eggs is about sixteen months,

twelve of those months outside the female’s body. A typical clutch consists of five to ten eggs. Roughly half of the eggs hatch successfully under optimal conditions.

A black dragon remains a wyrmling for about four years. It reaches adulthood at approximately 125 years and becomes an elder around the age of 900. It becomes ancient at around 1,600 years and passes away by the age of 2,200.

When a deceased black dragon experiences environmental diffusion, the result is an area of abnormal humidity and foul soil. Few plants grow there, and those that do are poisonous. Any water that collects in the area becomes acidic and burns to the touch—not enough to cause real damage, but enough to hurt. It is not potable.

Physical Characteristics

Black dragons appear abnormally slender in comparison
to other chromatic dragons—wiry, but not gaunt.
Although their forward-jutting horns look fearsome,
the horns serve no offensive use. They simply protect
the dragon’s head. The sunken eyes contribute to the
head’s infamous skull-like appearance.

When a black dragon submerges, a number of
muscular and nervous changes take place. The eyes
bulge dramatically, pressed outward by the dragon’s
facial muscles as the dragon’s vision adapts to the
water and murkiness. After this happens, the dragon
can discern fewer minute details but gains sensitivity
to large shapes and movements.

A thin layer of webbing stretches between a black
dragon’s toes, thicker on the rear feet than the fore.
This webbing grants the dragon its impressive swimming
speed. A swimming black dragon uses its tail
both for propulsion and as a rudder.

The hide of a black dragon functions like the skin
of amphibians: It extracts oxygen from the water
and feeds the oxygen directly into the bloodstream,
without the need for gills. This process is less efficient
than breathing with lungs, so although black
dragons are technically amphibious and can remain
underwater for hours or days, they must surface and
spend a few hours breathing air at least once or twice
a week.

Black dragons have a strong, acrid scent.

Notorious Individuals

Gugol

While blacks are known for their gaunt appearance, the gluttonous Gugol is anything but.

Deep in the swamps of a marshy isthmus the size
of a small continent, a self-proclaimed god who calls
herself the Lizard Queen demands worship from the
native lizardfolk and tribute from all others.

This ponderous beast is unlike any black dragon
known to adventurers or sages. Others of her kind
are sinuous and slender, with low-slung bodies, but
Gulgol is a massive, corpulent creature. Leathery
flesh bulges between scales that never grew sufficiently
to cover her astonishing bulk. It hangs in rolls
from her tail, from her neck, and beneath her squinting,
porcine eyes. She breathes heavily with exertion,
her legs bent beneath her heavy body, and her voice is
a deep rasp punctuated by sharp inhalations.

Do not mistake her corpulence and pumping
breath for a sign of weakness, or assume that her
inherent laziness makes her an easy target. Those
who do rarely survive to appreciate the magnitude of
their error.

Gulgol is a great black dragon that dwells
in the depths of the Fenreach. Gulgol has dwelt in the
swamp for several centuries. She eventually grew to
dominance over the rest of her clutch, and rumor has
it she consumed her siblings.

The swamp’s lizardfolk and other tribes
consider Gulgol a god, serving her fanatically. Communities
of the swamp must send her tribute or be
raided by her followers, and travelers who grow lost
in the Fenreach must choose whether to be enslaved
or eaten, unless they are rich enough to buy their
freedom. She insists on being addressed as “Queen
Gulgol” or “Your Majesty.” Anything less is an insult,
and those who offend Gulgol become her next meal. Gulgol’s zealous followers include a coven
of bog hags—named Zunuris, Ilbotha, and Shenvush—
and their servitor trolls; a tribe of savage humans and
their clutch of semitrained fen hydras; and a tribe of
blackscale lizardfolk whose name translates loosely as “Broken Fang Tears Violently.” Her vizier is a
guardian naga named Alhashna, and her other three
closest advisors are a trio of yuan-ti malison incanters
who believe Gulgol to be favored by the serpent-god
Zehir.

Gulgol is known as lazy and gluttonous,
not only to those who have studied her but to other
dragons as well. She is amazingly obese for a dragon
and refuses to expend any unnecessary effort; her
worshipers’ duties include delivering all her meals
and comforts. She is less agile than other black dragons
but is nevertheless powerful, and she can exert
herself if need be.

Through centuries of practice and the
study of draconic magic, the Lizard Queen has
altered her innate abilities. She has acquired the
power to force a measure of obedience from all
around her.

The distant Fenreach is an isthmus that connects two
great landmasses. It is nearly the size of a small continent
and is covered by deep swamp and marshy forest. Several
rivers run through it, allowing merchant vessels to travel
across the Fenreach rather than circumnavigating the
continents, but these waterways are tricky, hidden, and
impassable without the services of native guides whose
services do not come cheap. The humanoid inhabitants of
the Fenreach dwell in small villages built on hummocks,
or in trading stations constructed in the wrecks of ships. Life here is hard: sweltering, vermin-ridden, waterlogged,
and beset by hunger and plague. Further, the
people here must deal constantly with lizardfolk, yuanti,
hideous reptiles, and even undead. And worse than
them all, spoken of only in hushed whispers and bedtime
tales meant to frighten children, is Queen Gulgol, selfproclaimed
god of the swamp and all who dwell within.

Encounters with Gulgol take place
in her court: a cave in the side of an
overgrown and mossy hill that overlooks a bowl-shaped
depression in the swamp. Even if adventurers manage
to find the spot, they must either fight or talk their way
through an army of blackscale lizardfolk and a hydra
guardian, plus at least one of the yuan-ti. Even if Gulgol
deigns to grant an audience, she does not allow outsiders
into her cave, but heaves her great bulk out to the
opening, looking down upon petitioners in the hollow.